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3057
3057 is a CYOA topic created by Tom Bombadil on Christmas Day 2008. It chronicles a futuristic conflict. It is inspired by and modeled after the College Major topics created by RevolverSaro. Characters *Darek Moonfield - the protagonist, middle child of a prestigious diplomat, accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission to the Outlands Federation. Concerned about others, brave, moderately talented with weapons. *Dirk Moonfield - the prestigious diplomat of the Earth Republic. When his family is at risk of being taken captive after the skiff is boarded by a Federation cruiser. An idealist who is personally heroic but not realistic at times. *Jak Moonfield - the oldest child of Dirk. He is the pilot on the diplomatic mission. He is fiery and brave. Injured when the Federation boarding party is ambushed by Darek. *Sarah Moonfield - the mother and wife of the Moonfields. She is frail and has chronic fatigue, but cares deeply about her family. She never leaves Dirk's side. *Sierra Moonfield - the youngest child. Sierra was taken on the mission because she couldn't be trusted to stay at home and because it's time she saw more of the world than the Moonfield's home planet of Mars. *Daisuke Toriyama - a grizzled co-pilot who Dirk has known for years. Experienced and cautious. Injured when Darek ambushes the Federation boarding party. *Alfred Smitherson - Dirk's sniveling aide. Presumably cowardly, as he was nowhere to be found when the Federation cruiser attacked. The Story You are Darek Moonfield, middle child of the prestigious diplomat Dirk Moonfield. You are currently traveling on a small skiff, just entering Federation airspace. Your father is representing the Earth Republic, the small but powerful nation inhabiting the original solar system, and he has been sent to mend the increasingly poor relations with the Outlands Federation. While there has been hostility between the two for centuries, all-out war has been avoided so far, and your father is optimistic about the upcoming meeting. He’s brought the whole family along- you are an obvious choice, as you want to follow in your father’s footsteps, and your older brother Jak is of course the pilot. Your mother Sarah never leaves your father’s side, frail as she may be, and even if your kid sister Sierra could be trusted to stay at home, it’s time she saw more of the world than your home planet of Mars. Rounding out the small crew on the ship are Daisuke Toriyama, the grizzled co-pilot Father’s known for years, and Alfred Smitherson, Dad’s sniveling aide. The ship has just come out of hyperspace in Federation territory. As exciting as it is being in foreign airspace, there’s not that much to do yet- you won’t land on Korel for a few Earth hours yet. You probably should take a quick nap before landing, but you’re a bit too high strung to sleep now, so you should find a way to occupy yourself. You decide to check in on Mom to make sure she’s okay- she’s seemed well this trip, but she has chronic fatigue and a variety of other constant health issues, and she’s become skillful at hiding them from her children. You rap on her door, and she opens it up. She smiles warmly as she looks up from the book she was reading. “What’s on your mind, Darry?” You wish she wouldn’t call you that, (you’re already 20, for goodness’ sake!) but you’ve gotten used to it. “Oh, nothing much,” you respond. “Just killing some time until we land.” She casts a slightly reproaching look and starts to open her mouth, but just then the vidscreen pops on with a blip. Daisuke is on-screen, and he looks a bit worried, which says a lot given the old man’s stoic nature and lengthy career. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a slight situation up front. Dirk, I’d like to see you right away- the rest of you, please remain in your quarters until further notice.” Daisuke disappears from the monitor as abruptly as he appeared, and you and Mom exchange a worried glance. You have no idea what’s going on, and neither does she from the look on her face, but it can’t be good if it upset Daisuke of all people. You wonder if you could be of some help…you’ve got a small collection of weapons and tools in your room, and have reasonable proficiency with them all… You know you’re supposed to stay in the room, but you figure that it can’t hurt to do a little recon. You wait and listen for your father’s footsteps rushing by the door, then poke your head outside cautiously. “Darek-“ your mother whispers, but then stops, letting the rest of the sentence remain unsaid. You try to give her a quick reassuring smile, with only modest success, before sneaking off. You can hear raised voices coming from the cockpit, and don’t have much problem approaching undetected to eavesdrop. You hear your father, your brother, and Daisuke exchanging heated words. Daisuke’s talking about armaments, and Dad is protesting that this was supposed to be a peaceful mission. As best you can tell from the fragments you hear, it seems that some sort of vessel is threatening your small, unarmed craft. Jak wants to try some sort of trick, but Daisuke seems resolved to surrender. Your father seems not to believe what’s happening, but is inclined to give over to the enemy to protect his family. Jak argues that they could probably fight off any boarders, or maybe even make a quick jump to hyperspeed and escape, but that’s too risky for the older men, and Jak reluctantly concedes to his elders. They’re about to call the unidentified others back. You can hear the voices behind you fade as you hustle back to your room. You’re not entirely sure what’s happening, but you got enough of the conversation to realize that it’s probably not good, and it might behoove you to equip yourself. You burst into your room and head straight for the chest you keep under the bed. Your father and Daisuke have both given you a bit of self-defense training, and you enjoyed it enough to practice on your own. You’re not a legendary warrior by any means, but you can hold your own well enough to surprise somebody who mistakes you for an easy fight. You retrieve a small force blade and your low-grade blaster pistol from the antique chest your dad gave you to hold them. Like you, they’re not exactly super-powered, but they certainly give you an edge you didn’t have before. The force blade is a small, energy-imbued sword, barely long enough to qualify as a “sword” rather than a “dagger,” but it’s very lightweight, and you’ve become rather skillful with it. The blaster pistol packs very little punch, but it is similarly small and easy to wield, and keeps quite a lot of charge, should you need it for an extended firefight or something. Both are charged up and ready to go, and you hear the vidscreen pop on again. This time it’s Dad, asking everybody to stay calm, hide in their rooms, and trust him while waiting for further instructions. They must be allowing the still unidentified people to board, as you hear the airlock open. Most likely, it will only be a matter of seconds before whoever it is comes through the airlock door, and you still don’t know their intentions. You don’t have time to get to the cockpit from your quarters, but you could probably run to greet them, or slip into one of the other rooms. This probably isn’t your situation to handle, but that doesn’t mean you can plug your ears and hide under the covers. Keeping your armaments near you, you press your ear up against the door. Sure enough, the airlock door opens, and you hear heavy footsteps coming through it. You can’t tell how many, but more than one person came through for certain. “Yew must be Moonfield,” an unpleasant voice snarls. “Well then, onto the pod with ye! Lit’le ‘ero there and the geezer ‘ll be joinin’ ya.” “Now wait a second, that wasn’t our deal,” your father blurts, “You said you’d leave the others out of this!” “Yeh, well, yew really are gullible, ain’t yew? D’yer really think yer in any p’sition ta make demands ‘ere? Any trouble an’ my boys’ll blow yer stewpid lit’le ship to smith’reens! Betcher didn’t think this were part of the deal either!” You hear a soft thud, and a muffled groan from your father. A quick scream comes from your mother’s room, not stifled quickly enough. Your blood starts to boil as you picture your father being hit. It’s a straight shot down the hall to the airlock… You decide that it’s time to put your training to use. Pistol in hand, you slowly slide your head out the bottom of the doorway and get ready to snipe. There’s a round man with his back to you, but everybody else is facing you. A shrimpy Asian guy is holding the slumped figure of your father, a humongous black guy restrains Daisuke, and a tall white punk has Jak. Daisuke and the two bigger captors all see you at the same time, and there’s no time to think. You fire two rounds at the man with his back to you- the first hits him squarely in the back, but the second grazes his shoulder as he rushes to the cover of the airlock, bundling your father and the guy holding him along with him. Daisuke immediately flings his opponent over his shoulder, and kneels down to crack him with two hard rights to the jaw. Jak attempts to break free, and almost makes it, but the man holding him keeps a hold of his wrist, striking with a kick to the nads and a roundhouse to the head. You manage to line up a shot on him, but he backs away, fumbling with his gun, and you lose your line of sight. Daisuke attempts to rush him, but is met in mid-air with a burst of three shots to the stomach, and he collapses in an awkward heap. A burst of profanity is all the warning you get, as the Asian sticks his head out from the doorway and fires a few shots into your room as you duck back in. You pop back out and fire a few bolts back at the enemy, but both of you are too cautious to get hit. After a moment, the fire ceases, but when you poke your head out to fire a volley, you find out why. The Asian unleashes a barrage of fire, keeping you pinned down, while the guy hiding on your side of the hallway sprints across. Somebody rolls something towards you, and there’s a loud flash and a bang, leaving you blinded and deafened. You regain your senses in a couple of seconds, but by now your opponents have retreated fully into the airlock and shut the blast door. They’re probably taking off in their pod- the blast door won’t open once the auto-launch mechanism is activated, so there’s very little you can do to prevent them from taking off in about 2 minutes, unless you can scramble to the cockpit and figure out how to manually override the airlock. Jak is beginning to stir, the black guy is still down, and Daisuke looks pretty badly hurt, maybe even dead. “Darek,” breathes Jak, trying to struggle to his feet, “We have to…get out of here….they’ll….shoot us down….” Jak’s a much better pilot than you, but you’ve picked up a few things from him… You have to get out of there fast, and you don’t know if Jak is in any shape to fly. Time to see what you can do. You leave the three wounded men in the corridor and dash to the front. Hopping into the pilot’s chair, you start flipping switches and pulling levers just like your brother taught you. You barely even notice the large cruiser looming ominously in the front window, but once you do, you realize why Jak was so scared. A vessel that large is bound to be armed to the teeth, regardless of who exactly it was that boarded you, and why exactly they were doing so. You see that somebody’s trying to hail you on an unidentified frequency. It’s probably the boarders, but you don’t actually know- it could be Federation Air Force, or somebody entirely different. You decide to take a chance on the vidscreen, and answer the hail. You see a bald, middle-aged Asian man with an eyepatch standing against a bright red background. “So, little boy, you want to be a hero, do you? It’s too bad you couldn’t have given yourself up quietly- I could have gotten a decent price for you and your sister. I’m curious, what’s your plan now? Do you think you can escape my grasp? Even if you did have any armaments, I doubt you could even fly that puny thing!” He seems to be enjoying your predicament, as a cat would toy with a cornered mouse. It’d be helpful to know who you’re talking to. “Who are you, and what do you want from us?” The face on the screen smiles. “I got what I wanted, and now what I want is for you to die. Does it really matter who I am? But since you’re a dead man, I’ll tell you: my name is Yang.” You hear your brother stirring behind you. Maybe you can buy him some time. “Why are you doing this?” Yang’s face is unreadable and cool as he smiles again. “I’m a pirate, my dear boy! Do I need any more reason than that?” Jak is stumbling slowly towards the cockpit. “Now, we’ve had our bit of fun. Any last words before I blow you away?” "So, you expect me to believe you're going to surrender now? Heh." Yang gives a wry chuckle. "You tried that one already, but I'll play your little game, I suppose. I want every single person on the ship where I can see them, right in front of the vidscreen. Nothing funny, as it would be much easier to simply blow you out of the sky. Once I see all of you, I'll send my boarding party back.." Category:CYOA